A manga from Saitou Yuu's Twitter about a girl who's really good at acting, and the senpai she likes.
6 Volumes (Complete)
Premise:
Giji Harem has a cute premise involving two drama club members: actress Rin and stagehand Eiji. After Eiji makes an offhanded comment about every guy dreaming of being popular and having a harem, Rin uses her acting skills to simulate a harem, adopting many typical manga/anime personality tropes. Eiji plays along and appreciates her effort, setting the stage for their growing connection.
Rin and Eiji are introduced as friends, which allows the premise to feel less awkward (especially compared to the anime, which rushes into the harem scenario straight after the initial meeting).
Character Interactions:
Eiji is a character with a friendly, fun-loving personality. He engages with Rin's antics in a goofy way but also understands when she's being herself. His regard for her as an individual feels genuine, as he shows interest in Rin's true opinions despite the varied masks she wears.
The manga's playful banter and skits between Rin and Eiji allows them to let loose and act like kids. This sense of fun and mutual teasing creates a naturally warm dynamic.
Art:
Eiji's facial expressions are more varied and expressive in the manga than the anime (especially at the beginning), bringing more personality to his character. Rin, however, is drawn/animated well in both.
Pacing:
The manga has a episodic, skit-like nature of the manga, which works.
Themes:
The manga implies that Rin’s true personality as a blend of her many personas. While she initially uses them to hide her feelings, Eiji eventually recognises that it's not just an act—they are all sides of Rin.
It's not explored deeply, but through Rin's adoption of various personalities, it could be said that the manga explores the dualities and multiplicities of human nature, showing that people are not confined to one type or another at all times.
Age Rating:
The series includes some teasing and suggestive language, but all scenes remain very PG with no fanservice.
Overall:
It's an adorable and lighthearted manga, full of fluff, making for an easy read.
It was cute and sweet and it actually did have a plot, which was surprising because every new chapter had like it's own little story, kinda like a 4-coma, but also because of that it lacked depth or much development, still worth the read though.
Cute, short romance manga. The rare kind of romance that continues past the confession. The ML and FL are both well-written and appealing characters. And this is yet another case of a manga which involves acting being great.
I loved most of the story, but felt the ending fell a tiny bit short.
Fortunately, the title is misleading and this is not a real harem story. The very cute girl, who's in the drama club, acts as different characters in front of the senpai she likes (such as Cheeky-chan, Cool-chan, Tsundere-chan, etc. etc.). The spend a lot of time alone. Actually, pretty much it's just the 2 of them. Unfortunately, she does not have the courage to confess, and he's about as dense as a block of granite and doesn't realize he wouldn't want her to spend all that precious time with someone else. As cute goes, it's about as cute as you can find. Until it proves otherwise, since it's still ongoing at this point, it rates a 10 in my book.